OK, the sign should read “sold” because we bought it. It’s not much right now, but give it time …
Last week, a new table, chairs and a server (whatever the heck that is) arrived at my house and were shoe-horned into the kitchen. They’re far too big for the hovel we’re living in now, so my wife Amy and I decided to build a new house.
Well, it didn’t quite work like that — we’ve been talking for a couple years now about moving and either buying or building a new house. In short, the townhouse we’ve owned for more than a decade is just too small, with two growing boys and a dog. Plus a wife whose shoes alone need their own suite.
The market seems to have rebounded a bit, and so late last month, we picked out a lot in Central School District, signed the paperwork and plunked down a down-payment. Right now we have a barren tract of land and an idea of what kind of a house we want and what we want in it.
I figured I’d bring you along on the journey. Like I said, I’ve bought a house before, but never built one, so this is still a new adventure.
Have to hand it to Amy, she did a lot of the research and scouted out a builder, Keystone Custom Homes. And I have to say, if you’re looking for an all-in-one company, they do just that — they have the designs, they have the builders, they have the plots of land.
Keystone also has partnered with a company called Certain Sale, where they basically sell your house for you, they take a cut for themselves, and the rest of the money goes toward the sale price on your new house. Yeah, parting with some of that money from the sale of your old house might be hard to do, but again, you don’t have to deal with a real estate agent and putting it on the market and all of that — they do it for you.
I remember as a kid when my parents built a house, they hired a real estate agent, bought a lot, hired an architect, then hired a builder, fired that one, hired another one, and finally got the house done. Seemed like an extended pain in the arse, but in the end, they got a unique house that they still enjoy. And that’s fine if you want to do it like that, but it seems like a lot more headaches and time than I think the wife and I are willing to expend.
That doesn’t mean we’re not scared about this whole thing — unless you’re in the military (I am a Navy brat, so I know what I’m talking about), it’s unusual to pick up all your stuff and move it somewhere else too often. And even though we’ll be in the same school district, it means fitting in with new neighbors and new friends for our boys.
Next up for us is a meeting with a mortgage consultant, so we’ll see how that goes.
If there’s anybody out there who has gone through building a house, or is about to, drop your comments and we’ll talk.
